Yesterday I finished watching Ultraman (1966)
My only experience with this franchise was seeing a couple of clips from the Netflix movie, so essentially I went into this series blind. I'm also charmed by old kid shows easily, and thought I might have a good time.
I loved it. More than I expected.
The first episode has Ultraman accidently kill a human in pursuit of a monster and is so guilty about it he merges with him in order to save his life. Somehow that got me hooked.
Then I ended up absolutely adoring the Science Patrol. Fuji and Ide were my favorites. Hayata is a charming protagonist, even if I didn't see much of him. Arashi's main focus episode almost got me to cry. I really liked Hoshino's arc of becoming a member as well.
Plus Ultraman himself was pretty interesting whenever he was allowed to do more than fight. Like saving a monster created by children or talking about how much he's grown to care for Earth and it's inhabitants.
And don't get me started on the plot of each episode. There were mysteries that kept me confused; stakes that actually had me on the edge of me seat at times.
The version I got from my library had a problem, though. The English dub would suddenly go to Japanese for a little bit of time. This would happen randomly every episode. So I had to keep translated subtitles up in case I ran into that. The result was me watching two different versions of events sometimes. But even that only added to the experience. I was interesting seeing what was different.
Long story short: I wish to own a physical copy of this show. And would recommend it to anyone who asks.
(As a bonus here's one of my favorite Ide quotes.)
theartofmadeline
yousharknotpass
pixelskylines
gracieabrams
germansingergirl
ellievsbear
